BIGGEST IN LAKE CAPS 16-FISH HAUL!
When he set out to do his first session on a new water, little did Colchester-based Max Braby know he would end up spending the next 36 hours enjoying a red-letter session somewhere different!
A change of plan was forced upon the 17-year-old when he discovered his intended destination was packed out with anglers, but what a fortunate turn of events it ended up being, as Max would go on to tempt 16 fish from an adjacent lake, including 11 twenties and the largest fish in the lake, a mega-looking linear of 36lb 2oz.
“I arrived at the lake on Wednesday evening hoping to get my first session on my new water under my belt, but upon arrival I realised it was very busy,” said Max.
“I walked each side of the lake up to the out-of-bounds section and found a large group of fish showing at long range in the middle of the lake, exactly where all of the other anglers were set up. The closest I could have set up to the group of fish would have been at least 400 yards up the bank. After seeing this, I decided to drop on to the other lake on site, a water I actually did a few nights on last spring. Not knowing what had been going on at the lake for nearly a year, I chose to set up in a central swim which allowed me to see the whole lake so I could move on to the fish in the morning.
“By the time I had my kit sorted and three rods out, it was well into darkness. I was awoken in the night by what sounded like a big fish showing right over my spot, and before I could get back to sleep, the first rod was away! A few minutes later, I had a lovely mirror of just over 26lb in my net, a great start to my session.
“Just before first light, I was awoken by my buzzer rather than my alarm and was soon doing battle with another nice carp of 23lb. As it was getting light, I noticed a large group of fish showing in the far corner, but I was hesitant to move because of my two bites in the night.
“As the morning played out, a few fish had shown in the area that I was fishing, so I opted to stay where I was for the day, just to see if anything else would occur. The day went by without a beep, but as it started getting towards darkness, the lake came alive, with fish showing all over the place, apart from where I was fishing. I was just getting ready to move to where the bulk of the fish were showing when I had a slow take on the middle rod, a typical big-fish bite! As soon as I picked up into this fish I knew it was a good one, just because it was slow and felt really heavy in the deep water in front of me. The fish was staying deep and it did not take long for it to find a big weedbed halfway up the marginal shelf. Everything ground to a halt for a few minutes until the fish kicked its way out of the weed and I was back in the game. The fish was powerful and I could see what it was as soon as it came to the top of the marginal shelf, a wicked linear which looked like it could be one of the bigger fish in the lake. As it went over the net cord and it filled the whole net, I knew I had just caught one of the biggest fish in the lake. The two other people set up on my side of the lake came down to see what it was and to see what it weighed. After we got it on to the mat and we weighed it, it was confirmed to be the biggest fish known to be in the lake, down in weight from spawning, not that it bothered me at all. The fish weighed at 36lb 2oz, a seriously cool carp and I was over the moon to have it in my arms.
“After getting the rods all sorted following the capture of the big ’un and introducing more bait into the swim, the rest of the night was carnage, with a double take and seven other fish keeping me busy! I ended up just giving the fish some more bait and getting some sleep for a couple of hours with only one rod in the water. At first light, the last rod ripped off, producing another cool linear, a really long, wide and solid carp.
“I only had three hours left before I had to leave for work, so put the three rods out again and topped the bait up. I was not expecting a take literally seconds after all of the commotion, but a nice little scraper 20lb mirror was soon in my net, quickly followed by another mirror of around 24lb. I had two more fish before I had to be off the lake that morning, including a really cool 22lb mirror.”
Max caught all his fish using either 15mm Bug Corker wafters or 15mm PB pop-ups, presented over a bed of 15mm Bug shelf-life boilies.
